And They Tore Down The Berlin Wall - Part II

In part one of this series I looked at how Soviet style socialism was constructed in a centralised and hierarchical manner and as to how this lent itself to authoritarianism. Marxism-Leninism became the central tenet of Soviet and, after 1945, Eastern European socialism.

The construction of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 was upheld as symbolising the repressive nature of Communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe. But what most people failed to realise is that the state of communism, whereby the means of production, distribution and exchange would be in the full hands of the proletariat, had not even been realised. In reality, Marxism-Leninism placed great store on the fact that the Soviet Union and its satellite states were merely passing through the socialist phase of development on their way towards the communist promised land. Therefore, the reality was, as pointed out in the last blog, that aspects of capitalism were retained in terms of the need for production planning and industrial management.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s many East Germans began to exit via the open border to West Berlin. This caused headaches for both the Soviets and the East German Socialist Unity Party (SED) leadership under Walter Ullbricht. The Soviets had begun restricting travel rights for East Germans (and other socialist bloc citizens) during the dying stages of Joseph Stalin's rule. However, the mass exodus continued fuelled by political repression and the comparative prosperity of the West which, through implementing Keynesian economic policies, sought to head off the challenge from the planned socialist economies. Besides, the Soviet Union kept most of Eastern Europe comparatively poor as it milked the socialist economies for its own ends under the Comecon trading bloc arrangements. In the case of East Germany, in particular, the Soviets were determined to extract reparations for the damage sustained to the USSR during the Nazi invasion of 1941-43.

For all these reasons, on August 12th 1961, Stalin's successor Nikita Khrushchev gave Walter Ullbricht the order to construct the Berlin Wall. After that order, the building of the Cold War's starkest symbol began (with East German construction crews) along the 156 kilometre stretch of boundary that seperated East Berlin from West Berlin. On its completion, guards were given shoot to kill orders that remained in place right up until the Wall's fall in November 1989.

The Berlin Wall stood as a reminder of the repressive nature of neo-Stalinism. For 28 years, it became the most successful propaganda weapon that the West possessed in its attempt to undermine Soviet-style socialism. As a matter of fact, the Americans were relieved by the Wall's construction as tensions had been building between the US and its allies (Britain and France) and the Soviets who collectively had occupied the city since the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945. Fears had been growing up to that point that a nuclear confrontation could start in Berlin after the US became suspicious that the Soviets were preparing to sign a peace treaty with East Germany and thus end any hope of future reunification.

After the Berlin Wall's construction, the US upped the ante in its struggle against Soviet-style Communism. Consequently, this impacted on the ability of Western social democratic and other democratic left parties to succeed on the electoral and wider stage. This was the case as the Americans and their allies made no distinction between democratic left regimes which took a more critical stance towards the Soviet Union (albeit, a benign one) and Communist regimes which received direct backing from either Moscow and/or Beijing. For example, the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro was initially a coalition of progressive nationalist, socialist and communist opponents of the American-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista. But after the Castro regime nationalised mainly American owned industries, the Eisenhower administration turned hostile leading the Cubans to seek greater economic support from Moscow.

The same mistake was made in Vietnam where the Americans had backed Ho Chi Minh in fighting off the Japanese during World War Two but after the war they wrongly suspected that Ho was preparing the ground for a communist regime. The reality was that Ho, in proclaiming Vietnamese independence from France, had cited the words of the American Declaration of Independence in his country's freedom charter. Despite this, the Americans took no notice and Ho increasingly looked towards both China and the Soviet Union for support.

Countries that attempted to set up democratic socialist regimes were also trampled upon by Washington. While it sought to cheer on anti-Soviet rebellions in Hungary (1956) and Czechoslovakia (1968), any Western Hemisphere nation that returned democratic socialist regimes at the ballot box were brutally punished during the Cold War era. In fact, Washington had begun clandestinely intervening in the internal affairs of its allies almost straight after the war with its infamous campaign to prevent a victory by the Italian Communist Party in the 1948 Italian general election being the first of these. In 1970, the South American nation of Chile elected a Marxist and former medical doctor Salvador Allende as its president. Allende and his allies introduced economic and social policies that aimed to benefit that country's poor majority by nationalising key industries and introducing progressive health and education programmes. At the same time, in contrast with Soviet-style socialism, Allende maintained civil liberties and political freedoms but he wanted to ensure the enjoyment of positive freedoms (e.g. freedom from poverty and ill health) by the whole population as well. Washington, however, feared the worst due to the fact that Chile had nationalised American owned industries and desired closer relations with the socialist community, especially Cuba. For this, Richard Nixon's administration, through the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), assisted the coup of murderous right-wing General Augusto Pinochet in September 1973.

Similarly, Nicaragua was put through the ringer by Washington after the Sandinista regime (led by Daniel Ortega) seized power in 1979. The Sandinistas were (like the early Cuban regime) a coalition comprised of social democrats, socialists, communists, nationalists and liberal opponents of US backed dicator Anastasio Samoza. Samoza was a corrupt ruler who misappropriated some of the funds earmarked by the international community for reconstruction of Managua (the capital) following its destruction in a 1972 earthquake. This corruption along with deepening poverty and increasing human rights abuses saw the regime lose popularity and its overthrow by armed Sandinista rebels (who have been referred to as 'social democrats with guns') was widely welcomed. After 1979, it too nationalised major industries and initiated health, education and social programmes to benefit the poor majority. At the same time it gradually extended human rights and civil liberties, even to the extent of holding Nicaragua's first ever free elections in early 1984 (with the Americans refusing to recognise the result after the Sandinistas won). But what really alarmed Washington was again its choice of friends with the Soviets, Libyans and Cubans (albeit reluctantly) offering aid to the Sandinistas after President Ronald Reagan decided to clandestinely fund the Contra rebels in the early 1980s. Strategically, the Americans (guided by the Monroe Doctrine) did not want a 'potentially hostile' regime on their back doorstep and they were (sadly) successful in eventually undermining the Sandinistas who went down to electoral defeat in 1990. This was after a successful campaign of economic sabotage that included the illegal mining of Managua Harbour by the CIA in 1984.

It can be seen that even progressive democratic socialist parties, which genuinely believed in true industrial democracy where workers would be fully involved in the enterprise-level decision making (as the Soviets did institute a sham version), extensive welfare states, greater civil liberties and human rights and a more equitable distribution of wealth were actively campaigned against. Even in First World (developed) nations, parties that preached an openly democratic socialist agenda were shunned by the electorate after extensive propaganda campaigns waged by the political right. The most famous example of this occurred in 1983 where the British Labour Party adopted an election manifesto that promised nationalisation of major industries and the banking sector, an extension of welfare benefits and a Keynesian programme centered on full employment to counter the Thatcherite neoliberal policy agenda. The Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher and the Social Democratic Party (a party comprised of right-wing ex-Labour MPs) acted to jointly decimate the Labour Party in that year's election. In that poll, it almost came third in the popular vote and its agony was further compounded when the Tories won an increased majority. The Americans were also relieved by Labour's electoral losses not only that year but again in 1987 when it campaigned on a platform of unilateral nuclear disarmament, a stance that the Reagan and Thatcher governments disliked.

Overall, the fall of the Berlin Wall has produced a mixed blessing for democratic leftists like me. On the one hand, it did symbolise the downfall of socialist regimes that while Stalinist and repressive in their nature, did seek to give the peoples who lived under them a greater number of collective benefits in terms of free education, free health care, full employment and affordable housing as well as access to low-cost cultural and recreational activities. On the other, it gave greater space to democratic socialists to make their case without the fear of being cited as agents of Moscow anymore. This has given life to new democratic left-wing parties in places as diverse as France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Japan and Scotland where these types of groupings have gained representation in both local and national legislatures. In Latin America, a new wave of popularly elected socialist governments have taken office during the last decade with the most famous being that of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Other popular left-wing leaders have taken the helm in Bolivia, Ecquador and Paraguay with more social democratic leaders holding the reigns in Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. Recently, a right-wing coup de etat unravelled in Honduras with their populist social democratic President Manuel Zelaya being restored to office after weeks of mass protest. Once upon a time this sort of coup would never have been unwound by Washington but now it is a symbol that we live in different times.

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the people of Eastern Europe experienced their first taste of greater human liberty and freedom but the promise of prosperity has remained illusive for many due to the vagaries of the free market. In the West, it has given new life to left wing parties who would not have wanted to be tagged with the 'Moscow stooge' label in the past. For this reason, the democratic left has been able to thrive and campaign more openly for a progressive, less capitalist oriented society.

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